Kenya captured headlines in December 2007 when the former beacon of stability and growth in East Africa descended into political and social chaos after elections heightened ethnic and tribal divisions. Yet despite over 1,300 deaths, 300,000 displaced, and fears of a second Rwanda, Kenya has pulled back from the brink with the creation of a fragile power-sharing government between the two major rival parties, facilitated by the collaborative efforts of multiple stakeholders locally, nationally, and internationally.

Today, Kenyans return to the polls for the first time since the post-election violence to usher in a new constitution and drastic political and judicial reforms. As Kenya takes a step in a positive direction, its trajectory from violence and complete institutional breakdown to slow but constructive change should be an opportunity for the international community and United States to evaluate the potential and limitations of preventive diplomacy as a concrete foreign policy tool.

International involvement in Kenya did not involve boots on the ground, but focused on rigorous negotiations and external economic and political pressure from international institutions and countries. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, the African Union, and others were all key in the process, threatening punitive measures and pushing both sides towards compromise. (more…)

For the past 8 months, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Mines has been amassing a huge stockpile of diamonds plucked from the Marange diamond field in the eastern part of the country. The stockpile, which now tips the scale at around 4.6 million carats, is the unwanted byproduct of the Kimberley Process, the UN-backed regulatory body that certifies diamonds as conflict-free. Under the auspices of the Kimberley Process, 75 countries have agreed to adhere to strict standards governing the mining and sale of diamonds to ensure that the stones do not fund regional conflicts or contribute to human rights violations. If member countries are unable to meet the standards of the Kimberley Process, they are suspended or barred from selling diamonds under the Process. Zimbabwe fell into that category this past November when the Process suspended the country after investigations confirmed that the Marange mine was the site of grave human rights violations, including the alleged massacre of several hundred illegal miners by the Zimbabwean military.

Zimbabwe’s temporary suspension, however, is now under reconsideration and may soon be lifted. Several weeks ago, over 70 representatives from Kimberley Process member countries met in Israel to consider Zimbabwe’s case. Although the meeting ended without a decision, the Zimbabwean government’s position has enough support to make it conceivable that exports may be approved the next time the representatives meet. The South African businessman sent by the Kimberley Process to inspect Zimbabwean mines recommended that the country be approved, and African countries have largely backed Zimbabwe’s position. The main opposition to approval comes from three Western countries- the US, Canada and Australia- and numerous NGO and advocacy groups.

If the Kimberley Process member countries decide to lift the suspension, they will do so to the detriment of Zimbabwe’s future. On the surface, the Kimberley Process decision rests on whether Zimbabwe can prove that the Marange mining operation does not contribute to conflict or violate human rights in any way.  However, as the US well knows, any decision to allow Zimbabwe to sell vetted stones on the international market will carry repercussions not only for miners in Marange but for the country as a whole. (more…)

This is my last post for 2009 I thought I would write about Afghanistan but on second thought I will, no doubt, be doing that quite a lot during 2010. Thanks to the Obama Administration’s surge strategy Afghanistan will, from a blogging viewpoint, be the gift that keeps on giving.

So, as we contemplate whether 2010 will be better or worse let’s take a moment to consider 2009. In the spirit of Dave Barry’s classic annual year in review column let’s acknowledge, albeit with some poetic license commentary by moi, a few of the significant events that made, however briefly, the headlines.

Although it started on Dec. 28 2008 the month of January saw massive Israeli air strikes and a ground force invasion of the Gaza Strip. Heavy fighting took place in Gaza City between the Israeli forces and Hamas. At least 1300 Palestinians were killed. On Jan. 17 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, declaring that Israel has achieved the goals it set when launching the military operation. On Jan. 21 Israel completes its troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Also that month President Barack Obama signed executive orders closing the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year; closing the CIA’s secret prisons; requiring a review of military trials for terror suspects; and requiring all interrogations to follow the non-coercive methods specified in the Army Field Manual.

Of course, nobody knew back then that the camp would end up in Illinois. One can only hope that the inmates are not too acclimated to the Caribbean climate to adjust to a midwest winter.

On Jan 27 Hama declared that it previously was just kidding and broke the ceasefire by attacking an Israeli frontier patrol. Israel immediately responded that it lacks a sense of humor and renewed its air strikes on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt.

On Feb. 3 Iran launched its first domestically built satellite into orbit. Iran stated that the satellite is meant for research and telecommunications purposes, but Western states express concern that the technology could be used in the development of ballistic missiles. The U.S. intelligence community, estimating that Iran will show the same swift progress with its missiles that it did with its nuclear program, predicted the next flight will be in 2040.

On Feb. 6, renewing their classic rivalry, a British and a French nuclear submarine collided in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Political leaders from both countries sighed in relief that it was merely submarines and not their respective football fans that collided. (more…)

For the last decade, deep in the heart of the African continent the Democratic Republic of the Congo has laid claim to one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in history. Since the beginning of the Second Congo War (also known as Africa’s World War) in 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have died, making the war and its ongoing six-year aftermath the deadliest conflict since World War II. Equally appalling is the fact that only 10% of deaths are attributed to violence, with most resulting from starvation and easily preventable disease. An estimated 45,000 people are still dying each month – more than triple the mortality rate at the peak of the Darfur crisis in 2003 – and, according to both the World Bank and the IMF, the Congolese people are, quite simply, the poorest in the world.

The extraordinary level of Congo’s suffering is perhaps only rivaled by the conflict’s own complexity. Congo’s eastern provinces contain massive mineral deposits that are the source of the metals used in the cell phones, laptops, mp3 players, and digital cameras we use every day. But the minerals are mined in horrendous conditions under the watchful eye of many ambiguously interrelated militant factions, earning the lucrative natural resources the name “conflict minerals”.

Recently, strides have been taken toward achieving transparency of the origins of the minerals with the introduction of the Congo Conflict Minerals Act, co-sponsored by Senators Brownback, Durbin, and Feingold. The legislation would require all U.S.-registered electronics companies selling products containing columbite-tantalite, cassiterite, or wolframite to annually disclose the country of origin – and, if derived from Congo or an adjacent country, the mine of origin – to the SEC. Through oversight by the State Department, the intended outcome of the bill will be to sever the funding of the armed groups at the source. By modeling the effort on the Kimberley Process – the regulatory policy that has brought relative stability to the diamond trade in Liberia and Sierra Leone – the plan hopes to achieve the same results. (more…)

In the wake of the recent surge in piracy, it would be hard to argue that there is not a silver lining fastened to this unique international crisis – the tragedy of Somalia has finally been pushed onto the world stage. Somalia has long been a political catastrophe, having hit rock bottom after claiming the #1 ranking in The Fund for Peace’s most recent Failed States Index. In the last 18 years, Mogadishu has watched 14 failed attempts at establishing a functioning central government, and the current transitional government’s sphere of control has been reduced to just a few city blocks of the war-torn capital. The rest of the country is governed by unbridled anarchy in a violent free-for-all between rival clans, powerful warlords, and radical Islamists. To call Somalia a classic embodiment of Hobbesian state of nature would be a monumental understatement because Thomas Hobbes never fashioned his model of anarchy to include a seemingly infinite supply of automatic weapons. The timeline of the past two decades is dotted with covert military forays and half-hearted state-building efforts, but only as the crisis begins to spill over into the Gulf of Aden and aboard the decks of merchant vessels has the world finally truly taken notice. At a recent conference in Brussels attended by leadership from the UN, the EU, the African Union (AU), the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the international community pledged $213 million (far exceeding the requested aid) toward strengthening Somali security forces. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, said recently that “the problem of piracy has opened the eyes of those who have forgotten Somalia.”

However, many have been quick to note that international intrigue and foreign aid do not necessarily equate to results especially since, at first glance, stability in Somalia appears all but hopeless. After all, 2 million displaced refugees and a $600 per capita GDP in a country defined by drought, famine, and incessant war does not paint a promising picture. But Somalia is an anomaly among the rest of the world’s failed states, which are almost invariably defined by deep-seated religious or ethnic sectarian conflict. Somalia, on the other hand, is strikingly homogeneous. Nearly the entire population of almost 10 million shares the same ethnicity, religion, language, and culture. But the prolonged absence of the rule of law has given rise to violent clan loyalties that have shattered the Somali nation into countless unidentifiable pieces. Nevertheless, the pieces of unity exist. They just need a foundation on which to take shape. (more…)

Given that one of my distant relatives (no, not Johnny Depp) was one of the first Americans assigned the task of defeating pirates, I take a particular interest in the subject of piracy. Throw in my few years in the U.S. Navy, and I can’t help myself. Even though I was technically on vacation last week, I followed the story of the Maersk-Alabama and Captain Richard Phillips with great interest. And I exulted when three of the four pirates met their end. The safe return of the Maersk-Alabama and her entire crew was a clear win for the cause of justice, and could serve as a model. Future efforts to protect ships from pirates are likely to include some combination of greater vigilance on the part of the shipping companies and crews, in collaboration with the navies of the many different nations who have an interest in keeping the sea lanes open and free. (This is one of the themes that I develop in my new book, and that I will discuss next Monday at Cato.)

We do not need to reorient our grand strategy to deal with pirates. We don’t need to reshape the U.S. Navy to fight a motley band of young men in leaky boats. As my colleague Ben Friedman has written, piracy is a problem, but decidely minor relative to many other global security challenges.

But some are criticizing the approach taken to resolve last week’s standoff. They say that the only way to truly eliminate the piracy problem is to attack and ultimately clean out the pirates’s sanctuaries in lawless Somalia. This “solution” fits well with the broader push within the Washington foreign policy community that would deal with our security problems by fixing failed states.

I have gone on at length, usually with my colleagues Justin Logan and Ben Friedman, on the many reasons why a strategy for fixing failed states is unwise and unnecessary. I won’t expand on that thesis here, other than to point out that of all failed states in the world, Somalia is arguably the most failed of the lot. “Fixing” it would require a massive investment of personnel, money, and time — resources that would be better spent elsewhere.

Mackubin Owens offers one of the more intriguing defenses of this approach in a just published e-note for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Owens likens a strategy of fixing Somalia to Gen. Andrew Jackson’s military operations in Florida, a story that features prominently in John Lewis Gaddis’s Surprise, Security and the American Experience. As Owens notes, when some members of President James Monroe’s cabinet wanted to punish Jackson for exceeding his mandate — in the course of his military campaign he captured and executed two British citizens accused of cavorting with the marauders who had attacked American citizens – Secretary of State John Quincy Adams jumped to Jackson’s defense, and proposed a different tack. He demanded that Spain either take responsibility for cleaning up Florida, or else give it up. And we all know what happened. Under the terms of Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Florida became a territory of the United States. 26 years later, it became our 27th state.

I’ve vacationed in Florida many times. Walt Disney World is wonderful for the kids; I’ve been there six times. I spent three memorable days watching March Madness in Miami a few years back. Spring training baseball is great fun.  Adams couldn’t have imagined any of these things when he acquired a vast swampland; he cared only that Florida under Spanish control, or lack thereof, posed a threat.

Here is where the parallels to the present day get complicated. I’ll admit that I’ve never been to Somalia. Perhaps they have their own version of South Beach, or could have some day. But I’m frankly baffled by the mere intimation that our national security is so threatened by chaos there that we need to take ownership of the country’s — or the entire Horn of Africa region’s — problems.

And yet, that is what many people believe. And this is not a new phenomenon. In many respects, we have chosen to treat all of the world’s ungoverned spaces as the modern-day equivalent of Spanish Florida.

Well, some more good news. The Sudan/ Darfur envoy is going to be announced as early as today and the choice is Gen. Scott Gration, a former air-force pilot and Africa specialist. He advised candidate Obama on Africa policy and traveled with him to the continent in 2006. A Darfur activist noted the following from Gration’s DNC speech:

“In 2006, I went with Senator Obama to Africa, and experienced firsthand the leadership that America needs. In the shadow of Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, I saw a leader with the understanding to build new bridges over old divides. That leader is Barack Obama. In Nairobi, I saw a leader with the courage to confront corruption directly with the president of Kenya. In Chad, I saw a leader who listened to the stories of refugees from Darfur – a leader committed to end that genocide…..”

As I said earlier, the President has outlined a vision for Africa, let’s hope that the appointment of Gration is the start of a rapid push to build out the Africa team so that the people are in place to develop and execute policies based on that vision.

A few years ago I spent a fair bit of time working on the challenges facing Northern Ireland. I was happy to have the opportunity to play a small role on the issue and quickly came to understand that the NI Envoy had a key role to play in efforts to secure the peace in that area.

Today, Ben Smith (via Toby Harnden) let us know that Mark Tuohey is likely to be named the NI envoy by President Obama. This seems to be a good fit, Harnden let us know that Tuohey’s credentials include the fact that he “advised the Patten Commission on policing – a subject that remains a thorny issue in Northern Ireland.” Smith also suggests that the President “heard” the concerns raised by the Irish-American community when they responded negatively to “candidate Obama’s” suggestion that an envoy would not be needed. Whether that is true or not, as far as I’m concerned, this appointment is a good move from the President and worthy of praise. Having said all of that, it is also fair to say that this decision got me thinking about another part of the world I care about – Africa.

It struck me today that there are other regions of the world where the need to name an envoy is probably more acute than NI. One area that comes to mind immediately is Sudan/Darfur and another is the Congo.

Now, I understand that the question of an envoy for Sudan/Darfur is under active consideration within the administration (Darfur activist and actor George Clooney noted that a review was under way last month after his White House meeting with the President and Vice President) and Sen. Clinton suggested today that an appointment would be made within days.

This is without question good news, but as I read today’s announcement, which comes on the heels of important policy steps and appointments re: the Middle East and Central-South Asia, I was left with a feeling that the administration is falling behind the curve when it comes to Africa.

I wanted to test this sentiment and spoke to a few friends and colleagues with an Africa focus and it is fair to say that there is a growing sense among progressive foreign policy types that the administration’s Africa policy and appointments are in fact behind schedule.

Perhaps this critique seems harsh considering we are still within the first 100 days so let me be clear about one thing. I absolutely believe that the President has a lot on his plate and his priorties must be the economy, energy and Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan. BUT it is also important to note that the President has built an all-star foreign policy team precisely, one would suspect, to ensure active engagement in areas where he cannot focus at this time.

If you believe that this true, and I do, it seems fair to say that the President is being let down a little by his team. During the campaign he laid out his approach to a range of Africa centric challenges and now his team needs to build on that vision. It is time for the Secretary of State and the foreign policy group to develop and execute not only a Darfur/ Sudan policy but a broader strategy for Africa as quickly as possible – there are a range of crises that require US led multilateral attention quickly including those in Sudan/Darfur, the Congo, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has just issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. This action has historical implications with al-Bashir becoming the first sitting head of state to be subjected to an arrest warrant in the life of the court (the charges are war crimes and crimes against humanity). Now that the ICC has acted all eyes will turn first to Khartoum to see how the al-Bashir regime responds and then to Washington for the Obama administration’s reaction.

The challenge for the Obama administration is to leverage the pressure the court’s action will bring to bear on the Sudanese leader. I would like to see the administration publicly support the arrest warrant and make clear that the U.S. will not sit idly by if any member of the Security Council – notably China – attempts to shield Mr. al-Bashir. I’d also like to see the administration name a special envoy to take charge of the Sudan/Darfur issue (there are a number of attractive options but I’d urge the President to choose Gov. Richardson, who has worked this issue in the past, to serve).

An envoy would be in a position to take advantage of the space created by the ICC and push for a comprehensive peace agreement. Such an agreement would likely include: 

A long-term U.N. peacekeeping group in the region.
Complete demilitarization of the militia groups.
Governance concessions by the Sudanese central authorities.
Transfer of two other alleged war criminals – former Minister of State for the Interior Ahmed Haroun and janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb – to the ICC. 

The ICC has created some space – let’s hope the administration can use it.

Folks,

Just a short post from me this morning. The Baltimore Sun just ran an op-ed I co-authored with my friend Howard Salter titled “Will Obama Act to End Darfur Tragedy?” In the piece we consider whether the administration will look to leverage the forthcoming arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir  to secure a peace agreement for Darfur. 

Our piece has come out on the same day as this Washington Times editorial which urges the President to shun the Court. I’m not shocked at the stance taken by the WT but am curious to see what take my fellow bloggers and visitors to ATA have on this issue.

Cheers